At Gishora, young apprentices learn Burundi’s royal drumming tradition, recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage, from masters who began as children themselves. The community is passing on its rhythms and rituals while exploring how to share the art’s economic rewards and protect the trees that make the drums.
By Ferdinand Mbonihankuye, bird story agency
To play the drum in Gishora, you don’t simply take it up: you earn the right, step by step. On this hill, seven kilometres from Gitega, Burundi’s political capital, 10-year-old Noël Béni Manisengwe keeps his eyes fixed on the hands of his elders as they correct his technique.
Oscar Nshimirimana, 50, watches the apprentice with the nostalgia of someone who has been there himself. As the other drummers raise their sticks towards the sky, he follows every beat the boy strikes. With seven years of practice behind him, Noël Béni pounds the taut drumhead in time with the rhythm.
“I started learning to play the drum at the age of three,” says Nshimirimana. “I was exactly like Noël Béni when I took my first steps in this art.”
Burundi’s oral tradition comes alive in this exchange between master and pupil. Children first practise on banana trunks, called ibitumbutumbu in Kirundi, before progressing to small drums.
“When a pupil has mastered playing these trunks, we assess their skills to determine whether they are ready to move on to the next stage,” Nshimirimana explains.
About 40 seasoned drummers bring ancestral rhythms to life at Gishora, while an equal number of children practise in their wake. Their apprenticeship passes on more than technique: it carries the rituals, history and responsibilities surrounding an instrument once central to royal power.
A legacy rooted in the monarchy
Nshimirimana has led the Gishora drummers since 2017. He succeeded Antime Baranshakaje, whose grandfather, according to oral tradition, hid King Mwezi Gisabo in a sorghum granary during the Kilima rebellion.
Historical and ritual knowledge has passed down through this family line.
Professor Elie Sadiki, an archaeologist and lecturer at the University of Burundi, places Gishora within a wider network of drum sanctuaries.
“This site was established by the great drum ritualists of Rwesero, the traditional drum-makers.”
According to Sadiki, King Ntare Rugamba and his successor Mwezi Gisabo, founded sanctuaries at Higiro, Gishora and Butegeye.
“The sites do not arise out of nowhere: they give rise to one another,” he says.
In 2014, UNESCO inscribed Burundi’s ritual dance of the royal drum on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Sadiki stresses the distinction between recognition of the living tradition and recognition of the physical site.
“It is not the Gishora site that has been inscribed, but the art of drumming, under the 2003 Convention.”
Gishora’s royal residence is separately included on Burundi’s tentative list for World Heritage nomination.
International recognition, however, has not resolved the community’s financial difficulties.
Nshimirimana says the site attracts Burundians, members of the diaspora, researchers and other visitors, but numbers rarely exceed ten groups of visitors a month. Entrance fees are shared between staff, drummers and the local council.
“We do not have a specific budget,” he says.
Sadiki puts the price of a 30-minute group performance at between 300,000 Bif (US$ 100) and 500,000 Bif (US$165). But the fee alone does not establish how much income reaches the performers or how regularly they earn it.
Women’s place in a living tradition
Amid the thunder of the drums, Salomé Congera, 50, performs a series of elegant dance steps. She takes an active part in the performance but never touches a drum.
A presidential decree signed in 2017 prohibits women from playing the drum, a restriction presented by some at Gishora as a continuation of sacred tradition.
Sadiki explains the prohibition through the instrument’s symbolism. The drum is described as having a forehead, breasts and a navel, and embodies royal power. In the traditional interpretation he describes, playing it is symbolically associated with impregnating the instrument.
Christella-Mariza Kwizera, a sociologist and lecturer at the University of Burundi, calls for an educational and institutional debate about women’s place in the tradition.
“Even within the women’s emancipation movement, certain symbols must be respected,” she says.
But she also points to a history in which women exercised authority.
“Before colonisation, Burundian women held genuine positions of political, spiritual and economic power.”
Safeguarding this immaterial tradition now depends on preserving the tree that brings it to life
Environmental scientist Célestin Havyarimana
She cites Inandabunga, a daughter of King Mwezi Gisabo who governed a region before being removed under colonial administrative reorganisation, and the historical figure Inamujandi.
For Kwizera, strengthening women’s role at Gishora requires more than selling goods to visitors. She argues for businesses grounded in local skills and knowledge.
“Selling a few bananas or avocados on the street is not true entrepreneurship. We need to focus on projects rooted in the local area, history and ancestral women’s knowledge, such as specialised basketry (inkoko) or pottery.”
Her proposal places women’s knowledge alongside drumming as a resource that could support livelihoods. Whether such enterprises can take root will depend on more than the site’s cultural appeal.
Who benefits when the rhythms travel?
The question of income extends beyond visitors to Gishora.
Kwizera argues that the international circulation of Burundian drumming does not necessarily bring financial returns to the communities that safeguard and teach it.
“This is a form of cultural extractivism: people are profiting from a community’s expertise without ensuring that the original source benefits,” she says.
She advocates a royalty system and direct economic returns to Gishora, helping support its custodians while strengthening Burundi’s cultural presence abroad.
The proposal raises a practical question: how can a tradition passed down collectively generate income that reaches the people keeping it alive?
The future of the tradition also depends on the wood from which the drums are made.
Cordia africana, known in Kirundi as umuvugangoma, is closely associated with Burundi’s royal drums. Environmental scientist Célestin Havyarimana says population pressure, the conversion of forests to farmland and demand for firewood are reducing the availability of suitable trees.
A 2024 study published in the University of Burundi’s journal of exact and natural sciences recorded 86 Cordia africana trees across the surveyed area of Kirimiro. More than half were less than 20 centimetres in diameter. The study also found that drum-makers were turning to alternative species, whose drums were less effective and durable.
“Safeguarding this immaterial tradition now depends on preserving the tree that brings it to life,” Havyarimana warns.
He advocates specialised nurseries supported by international environmental funding and the integration of drum-making trees into local agroforestry systems.
Passing on more than rhythm
Protecting the tradition therefore means passing on both the skills to play the instrument and the resources to make it.
Back at Gishora, the apprenticeship continues. Beyond mastering the beat, children learn respect for rituals, taboos and collective memory.
“There is what we call something in the blood, a gift that certain people possess, a legacy passed down by parents and ancestors,” Nshimirimana says.
As Noël Béni watches his elders’ hands and strikes the drumhead, that legacy takes shape in another generation.
bird story agency
